And now. A month to figure out next years roster. I am NOT waiting until the last day this year.
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Thanks!
There are so many "what-ifs" in this game. For me, the most meaningful is that if Hodeg had not crashed in the last corner of the Tour de L'Eurometropole and had then won, as he seemed poised to do, my team would now be in 5th instead of 7th.
Thanks again Skidmark for organizing the game. I am looking forward to putting together my team for next year!
I started early this year, but now I have about 70 riders listed for my 2020 team.
It's a nightmare!
It's a nightmare!
I've got almost 200 riders in my long list.
And it looks like the opposite of last year, too many riders I'm pretty sure will have great seasons: hard to pick 33.
Final Update: Fuzhou Closes out Season as fauniera Crowned Champ
It's been all but official for weeks, but the CQ Ranking Manager Game has now officially closed! The most recent update saw a handful of teams score a handful of points, and this update with the season-closing Tour of Fuzhou sees a handful of teams score a few more points!
This Week's (top) Scorers
Two players chosen in this game scored this week - Carlos Quintero got 84 points, and Joseph Areruya got 4. Both were owned by 2 teams, so tobydawq and Popchu, who appeared last week thanks to a handful of points by Quintero as well, split the honors on the last week of the season.
This Week's High Movers
Popchu manages to slide up two spots, from 27th to 25th, to end the season. VeloRooms moves up into a tie for 87th, and tobydawq... we'll get to that below.
Green Jersey Final Standings
This competition tightened up through October, but in the end tobydawq's 5-point lead was extended by scoring 5 and 7 points in the last two weeks. Popchu's identical scoring moved their team up into 4th overall, while armchairclimber and ansimi maintatined their podium spots. Congrats to tobydawq!
Final Top 10 Overall
The standings are the same as they've been since the end of Guangxi, with the notable exception of team tobydawq, who kept on scoring. It's good enough to move up a spot on the final update, at the expense of team skidmark, who slides down to 9th while no doubt cursing whoever makes up the rules to this goddamn game.
But let's not bury the lede - after a well fought and competitive CQ game season, as well as a well-discussed finale amongst the frequently-posting top end of the classification, fauniera can officially be proclaimed as a two-time CQ game champion! karaev finishes 180 points back in second, while Hakkie2 gets a place of honor on the podium as well. The top 10 has a good mix of former winners, teams that have placed highly in the past, teams that have played for a long time and have seen their best results this year, and relative newcomers. The two two-time winners and the two organizers of the history of the game (shout out to game founder Hugo!) are in the top 10. Participating team numbers may be down from their absolute peak a few years back, but this game is still a joy to run and to participate in, with an intelligent, fun and talkative group of participants. I'm sure some of us have been thinking of next year for awhile now, but now we can turn our full attention to it. New game post usually goes up around mid-December, so keep your eyes on this forum!
Thanks everyone
spreadsheet at dropbox
It's been all but official for weeks, but the CQ Ranking Manager Game has now officially closed! The most recent update saw a handful of teams score a handful of points, and this update with the season-closing Tour of Fuzhou sees a handful of teams score a few more points!
This Week's (top) Scorers
Two players chosen in this game scored this week - Carlos Quintero got 84 points, and Joseph Areruya got 4. Both were owned by 2 teams, so tobydawq and Popchu, who appeared last week thanks to a handful of points by Quintero as well, split the honors on the last week of the season.
This Week's High Movers
Popchu manages to slide up two spots, from 27th to 25th, to end the season. VeloRooms moves up into a tie for 87th, and tobydawq... we'll get to that below.
Green Jersey Final Standings
| Rank | Team | Total |
| 1 | tobydawq | 243 |
| 2 | armchairclimber | 225 |
| 3 | ansimi | 224 |
| 4 | Popchu | 220 |
| 5 | ruvu75 | 218 |
| 6 | TheArt | 212 |
| 7 | Leadbelly | 205 |
| 8 | Kryvo | 201 |
| 8 | karaev | 201 |
| 10 | skidmark | 197 |
This competition tightened up through October, but in the end tobydawq's 5-point lead was extended by scoring 5 and 7 points in the last two weeks. Popchu's identical scoring moved their team up into 4th overall, while armchairclimber and ansimi maintatined their podium spots. Congrats to tobydawq!
Final Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Up/down | Team | Points |
| 1 | (-) | fauniera | 14579 |
| 2 | (-) | karaev | 14399 |
| 3 | (-) | Hakkie2 | 14260 |
| 4 | (-) | Tigerion | 14188 |
| 5 | (-) | ruvu75 | 13888 |
| 6 | (-) | SafeBet | 13826 |
| 7 | (-) | shalgo | 13803 |
| 8 | (+1) | tobydawq | 13746 |
| 9 | (-1) | skidmark | 13678 |
| 10 | (-) | Hugo Koblet | 13632 |
The standings are the same as they've been since the end of Guangxi, with the notable exception of team tobydawq, who kept on scoring. It's good enough to move up a spot on the final update, at the expense of team skidmark, who slides down to 9th while no doubt cursing whoever makes up the rules to this goddamn game.
But let's not bury the lede - after a well fought and competitive CQ game season, as well as a well-discussed finale amongst the frequently-posting top end of the classification, fauniera can officially be proclaimed as a two-time CQ game champion! karaev finishes 180 points back in second, while Hakkie2 gets a place of honor on the podium as well. The top 10 has a good mix of former winners, teams that have placed highly in the past, teams that have played for a long time and have seen their best results this year, and relative newcomers. The two two-time winners and the two organizers of the history of the game (shout out to game founder Hugo!) are in the top 10. Participating team numbers may be down from their absolute peak a few years back, but this game is still a joy to run and to participate in, with an intelligent, fun and talkative group of participants. I'm sure some of us have been thinking of next year for awhile now, but now we can turn our full attention to it. New game post usually goes up around mid-December, so keep your eyes on this forum!
Thanks everyone
spreadsheet at dropbox
Thanks for running this great game Skidmark! Finished 33rd this year without Evenepoel. But even if I wasn't too stubborn to pick him, I would have finished well outside the top 10 so really no great harm done. Have a shortlist of 50+ riders for next year including some of the disappointing popular riders from this years game. So really looking forward to January with start of the season and start of this great game again
So you just copied a post I made three months ago and randomly posted it as your first post ever? Great job and very meaningful.
Skidmark, I have a question for you before I submit next year's team and am told I can't do what I ask about now:
Is there a rule that prevents us from picking female riders to our team? Not once in your list of rules is it specified that riders must be male but I guess it's implicit.
I may be mistaken but I do not think that cqranking publishes results of Women's races and therefore does not award any points for Women riders.
Would anyone be interested in a Women CQ Ranking Manager?
I don't have the time/skills to organise it myself, but I think the timing is right for such a game.
I don't have the time/skills to organise it myself, but I think the timing is right for such a game.
They do, you just have to select Women at the top of the menu on the left.
I actually toyed with the idea of starting a women's game way back, but then mc_mountain dropped the Youth game and asked if I could take over, which made me abandon the plan. I'm still not sure there'd be enough interest in such a game for it to be worth the organizational effort.
Armchair Cyclist
Moderator
I also toyed with the idea of starting a women's game, but the problem is that whereas there are weekly downloads for the men, for the women they are very few and irregularly spaced (in 2019 it has been Jan 1, Jan 28, Feb 3, Apr 28, Jun 23, Aug 18 and Nov 17, and that's it.)
So I started the decline game instead, which I dumped after a couple of years to make time for the Emerging Riders games.
So I started the decline game instead, which I dumped after a couple of years to make time for the Emerging Riders games.
But oh my god.... we can start picking our teams! I'm down to 220 riders. Much work to do. I am so thankful to have this game to play.
Don't think I've congratulated fauniera on the victory yet. So... congratulations! It's very well deserved.
Remember you said this before the season?
With nobody doubling their score, the point scoring was a bit on the low side this year, as predicted. I will have the updated overall statistics and all-time lists up soon, when I find some time.
Remember you said this before the season?
Turned out your strategy was the best one! And imagine the margin of victory if you picked Pogi instead of, say, the Kittel/Cav combo.Agree. It is extremely difficult this year. So many possible strategies.You know it's almost Christmas when...
It's so hard picking a team this year. Almost no super picks, and most of the 'obvious' ones have some uncertainty hanging over them. Not a lot of straightforward 'bad season due to collarbone fracture' or something like that. Quite a few viable expensive picks, though. Getting the right combination here will be crucial, and will depend on luck, mostly.
I don't necessarily expect to be fighting near the top this year. So many things can go wrong. I also expect low scores. Maybe the winner can strike very lucky, but I think 10th or 20th will score way lower than 10th or 20th this year. How you can get 19500 estimated points, vladimir, I really don't understand!
With nobody doubling their score, the point scoring was a bit on the low side this year, as predicted. I will have the updated overall statistics and all-time lists up soon, when I find some time.
Armchair Cyclist
Moderator
November is a very busy month for work. Plus in process of starting to pack the house to move, which will happen next spring. My husband has a new job so we're moving.
Okay, so here's my end-of-season overview of the overall stats.
Top overall score
It's gonna take something monumental to usurp the leader here, as it's rather unlikely that skidmark skips a year. His lead extends again, while Madrazo and Hugo Koblet bumps Kazistuta off the podium after the latter had a quite mediocre seasons for their standards.
Now for some weird news. It's finally no longer a requirement to have participated in every edition of the CQ game to be in the top ten, as Geraint Too Fast makes the jump despite having missed the inaugral edition. It's quite an achievement by GTF to be above five players who have an extra year's worth of points (GTF was already ahead of four of them at the start of this season). The surprising thing is that GTF makes the top ten after their worst year by far, having finished 68th – which is their first ever placing outside the top 30. Entering the top ten is only possible because Armchair cyclist, who falls out of the top ten, had an even worse year with their 97th place. But even just one placing behind GTF would probably have lost Armchair his top ten: GTF only needed to make up 3 points!
And for some good news: This was the first year that we didn't lose any of the ever-present players. 14 of them still remain.
Average placement (3+ participations)
Hakkie2 has an unbelievable record in this game! 20th, 12th, 10th and now 3rd place in 2019! Hakkie2 consolidates the lead, but one bad year can ruin everything, as it kind of did for me this year (dropping 6 places on the list) and Geraint Too Fast. Relative newcomers SafeBet and Kryvo have been very consistent, and jump straight into 3rd and 4th, respectively.
Top weekly scores
Still no new entries in the top ten of the top weekly scores since 2015. Del1962 posts the biggest week of 2019 with 1835 points after the Tour de France, enough for 12th best week of all time.
Top yearly scores
Nobody even reached 15000 points this year, which is my criteria for being put on the list by which I track top yearly scores. I have higher hopes for next year in this category...
Most popular picks
Kittel was picked by 87% of the teams this year, which puts him near the top of this list for the second time, this time as the 7th most 'obvious' pick of all time. There probably won't be a third time though. Some of the nearly ubiquitous riders have been quite unsuccesful. Kittel in 2019 is in the good company of Andy Schleck's 2013 season and Cav's 2018. The similarly unsuccesful Fabio Aru, who was picked by 84% of all teams this year, is the 13th most 'obvious' pick of all time.
Top overall picks
And we keep picking these guys! With his 3 picks this year, Phinney barely hangs on to his title as the most-picked rider ever in the CQ game, but he'll struggle to keep it next year. Most of those who made jumps on this list as popular picks of 2019 had bad seasons again, and we can expect to see some of them in quite a few teams next year as well. The battle for the position as Phinney's successor is on! Now, who manages to sound the most motivated in pre-season interviews?
Some trivia: One of the riders in the top ten overall picks managed to stay on the ever-dwindling list of riders who have been picked by at least one CQ manager in each of the nine years the game has been run. Can you guess who? That list was cut from 17 to 12 riders this season.
Best rookie player
Year, name, placing
2012 Nyssinator 3rd
2013 SteelyDan 1st
2014 Cykeltyven 2nd
2015 kabete 6th
2016 abbulf 3rd
2017 SafeBet 22nd
2018 TheArt 4th
2019 tobydawq 8th
Top overall score
| Rank | +/- | Name | Total score |
| 1 | (-) | skidmark | 124048 |
| 2 | (+1) | MADRAZO | 118354 |
| 3 | (+1) | Hugo Koblet | 118067 |
| 4 | (-2) | Kazistuta | 117856 |
| 5 | (-) | EvansIsTheBest | 115311 |
| 6 | (+2) | Jpettersen | 109425 |
| 7 | (+2) | Object | 108756 |
| 8 | (+2) | will10 | 108511 |
| 9 | (-3) | Ferminal | 107539 |
| 10 | (+1) | Geraint Too Fast | 107493 |
It's gonna take something monumental to usurp the leader here, as it's rather unlikely that skidmark skips a year. His lead extends again, while Madrazo and Hugo Koblet bumps Kazistuta off the podium after the latter had a quite mediocre seasons for their standards.
Now for some weird news. It's finally no longer a requirement to have participated in every edition of the CQ game to be in the top ten, as Geraint Too Fast makes the jump despite having missed the inaugral edition. It's quite an achievement by GTF to be above five players who have an extra year's worth of points (GTF was already ahead of four of them at the start of this season). The surprising thing is that GTF makes the top ten after their worst year by far, having finished 68th – which is their first ever placing outside the top 30. Entering the top ten is only possible because Armchair cyclist, who falls out of the top ten, had an even worse year with their 97th place. But even just one placing behind GTF would probably have lost Armchair his top ten: GTF only needed to make up 3 points!
And for some good news: This was the first year that we didn't lose any of the ever-present players. 14 of them still remain.
Average placement (3+ participations)
| Rank | +/- | Name | Participations | Average placing |
| 1 | (-) | Hakkie2 | (4) | 11 |
| 2 | (-) | The Hitch | (5) | 16 |
| 3 | (New) | SafeBet | (3) | 21 |
| 4 | (New) | Kryvo | (3) | 22 |
| 5 | (+5) | Ruvu75 | (5) | 22 |
| 6 | (-) | skidmark | (9) | 23 |
| 7 | (-2) | gustienordic | (4) | 24 |
| 8 | (-5) | Geraint Too Fast | (8) | 24 |
| 9 | (-1) | Nyssinator | (4) | 25 |
| 10 | (-6) | Squire | (7) | 26 |
Hakkie2 has an unbelievable record in this game! 20th, 12th, 10th and now 3rd place in 2019! Hakkie2 consolidates the lead, but one bad year can ruin everything, as it kind of did for me this year (dropping 6 places on the list) and Geraint Too Fast. Relative newcomers SafeBet and Kryvo have been very consistent, and jump straight into 3rd and 4th, respectively.
Top weekly scores
| Rank | Name | Weekly score | After which race |
| 1 | Ben1376 | 2146 | Giro d'Italia 2014 |
| 2 | fauniera | 2101 | Giro d'Italia 2014 |
| 3 | CQmanager | 2063 | Tour de France 2015 |
| 4 | Kwibus | 1962 | Vuelta a Espana 2011 |
| 5 | kurtinsc | 1940 | Vuelta a Espana 2011 |
| 6 | Milanello | 1930 | Giro d'Italia 2014 |
| 7 | Ruvu75 | 1899 | Tour de France 2015 |
| 8 | highoctane | 1885 | Giro d'Italia 2014 |
| 9 | Slow_Rider | 1875 | Giro d'Italia 2014 |
| 10 | MCardinalR | 1874 | Giro d'Italia 2014 |
Still no new entries in the top ten of the top weekly scores since 2015. Del1962 posts the biggest week of 2019 with 1835 points after the Tour de France, enough for 12th best week of all time.
Top yearly scores
| Rank | Name | Points | Year |
| 1 | skidmark | 19372 | 2012 |
| 2 | Kvinto | 18106 | 2012 |
| 3 | Nyssinator | 17785 | 2012 |
| 4 | FF'Wilco | 17116 | 2012 |
| 5 | TeoSheva | 17096 | 2012 |
| 6 | Armchair cyclist | 17092 | 2012 |
| 7 | EvansIsTheBest | 16911 | 2012 |
| 8 | ruvu75 | 16513 | 2018 |
| 9 | mc_mountain | 16479 | 2012 |
| 10 | shalgo | 16446 | 2012 |
Nobody even reached 15000 points this year, which is my criteria for being put on the list by which I track top yearly scores. I have higher hopes for next year in this category...
Most popular picks
| Rank | Name | Percentage of teams | Year |
| 1 | BOONEN Tom | 92 % | 2014 |
| 2 | KITTEL Marcel | 92 % | 2016 |
| 3 | SCHLECK Andy | 90 % | 2013 |
| 4 | HUSHOVD Thor | 89 % | 2013 |
| 5 | CAVENDISH Mark | 89 % | 2018 |
| 6 | DEGENKOLB John | 89 % | 2017 |
| 7 | KITTEL Marcel | 87 % | 2019 |
| 8 | NIZZOLO Giacomo | 86 % | 2018 |
| 9 | HENAO MONTOYA Sergio Luis | 86 % | 2015 |
| 10 | COQUARD Bryan | 85 % | 2018 |
Kittel was picked by 87% of the teams this year, which puts him near the top of this list for the second time, this time as the 7th most 'obvious' pick of all time. There probably won't be a third time though. Some of the nearly ubiquitous riders have been quite unsuccesful. Kittel in 2019 is in the good company of Andy Schleck's 2013 season and Cav's 2018. The similarly unsuccesful Fabio Aru, who was picked by 84% of all teams this year, is the 13th most 'obvious' pick of all time.
Top overall picks
| Rank | +/- | Name | Total picks |
| 1 | (-) | PHINNEY Taylor | 361 |
| 2 | (+5) | CHAVES RUBIO Jhoan Esteban | 358 |
| 3 | (+3) | CAVENDISH Mark | 356 |
| 4 | (-1) | BETANCUR GOMEZ Carlos Alberto | 350 |
| 5 | (-3) | DOMBROWSKI Joseph Lloyd | 348 |
| 6 | (+6) | ARU Fabio | 336 |
| 7 | (-3) | MOSER Moreno | 333 |
| 8 | (-3) | GOSS Matthew | 289 |
| 9 | (-1) | EWAN Caleb | 278 |
| 10 | (+21) | KITTEL Marcel | 261 |
And we keep picking these guys! With his 3 picks this year, Phinney barely hangs on to his title as the most-picked rider ever in the CQ game, but he'll struggle to keep it next year. Most of those who made jumps on this list as popular picks of 2019 had bad seasons again, and we can expect to see some of them in quite a few teams next year as well. The battle for the position as Phinney's successor is on! Now, who manages to sound the most motivated in pre-season interviews?
Some trivia: One of the riders in the top ten overall picks managed to stay on the ever-dwindling list of riders who have been picked by at least one CQ manager in each of the nine years the game has been run. Can you guess who? That list was cut from 17 to 12 riders this season.
Best rookie player
Year, name, placing
2012 Nyssinator 3rd
2013 SteelyDan 1st
2014 Cykeltyven 2nd
2015 kabete 6th
2016 abbulf 3rd
2017 SafeBet 22nd
2018 TheArt 4th
2019 tobydawq 8th
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Trivia: there are three forum darlings on that list (Dombro, Betancur and Moser).
I don't think there was anybody crazy enough to pick Moser after his monster 2012 season (I wasn't playing the game after all).
Betancur is trickier cause his career trajectory was much more linear until 2013, so I guess it made sense to pick him even after his best season to date (scoring 950 at 23 years old). And then there was always hope he could turn things around.
Dombro is hard to assess for me, I never really considered him as a high potential rider so I can't see reasons to pick him say after his 2015 season. But I know he's got diehard fans over here so it's not impossible.
All things considered I'm leaning towards Betancur cause he's got the most aficionados on the forum.
And I'm sure you'll tell me it's none of these three
I don't think there was anybody crazy enough to pick Moser after his monster 2012 season (I wasn't playing the game after all).
Betancur is trickier cause his career trajectory was much more linear until 2013, so I guess it made sense to pick him even after his best season to date (scoring 950 at 23 years old). And then there was always hope he could turn things around.
Dombro is hard to assess for me, I never really considered him as a high potential rider so I can't see reasons to pick him say after his 2015 season. But I know he's got diehard fans over here so it's not impossible.
All things considered I'm leaning towards Betancur cause he's got the most aficionados on the forum.
And I'm sure you'll tell me it's none of these three
Armchair Cyclist
Moderator
Thank you skidemark for once again host this awesome game. And congratulations to all the winners.
At least I am in top 10 in one of the standings, great work with the stats Squire.
I haven’t started to look at riders for next year, but that is what Christmas vacation is there for.
At least I am in top 10 in one of the standings, great work with the stats Squire.
I haven’t started to look at riders for next year, but that is what Christmas vacation is there for.
Armchair Cyclist
Moderator
It might be possible to beat this lot, but 25020 is the best combination I can find.
|
Moser: Oh, there's always someone crazy enough! You'll be surprised to hear that three managers picked him in 2013. But he's still not the right answer, because nobody knew about him in 2011. He's been picked every year since though.Trivia: there are three forum darlings on that list (Dombro, Betancur and Moser).
I don't think there was anybody crazy enough to pick Moser after his monster 2012 season (I wasn't playing the game after all).
Betancur is trickier cause his career trajectory was much more linear until 2013, so I guess it made sense to pick him even after his best season to date (scoring 950 at 23 years old). And then there was always hope he could turn things around.
Dombro is hard to assess for me, I never really considered him as a high potential rider so I can't see reasons to pick him say after his 2015 season. But I know he's got diehard fans over here so it's not impossible.
All things considered I'm leaning towards Betancur cause he's got the most aficionados on the forum.
And I'm sure you'll tell me it's none of these three
Dombro was also completely unknown in 2011, but his results in 2012 made him a top 10 pick in 2013. And if you never considered him a high potential rider, you were probably not around at that time. He was seen as an Adrien Costa level talent or better after coming 4th on Mount Baldy ahead of many of the big American names like Horner and Leipheimer in California, and then absolutely destroying Aru in the Baby Giro, putting almost a minute into him on the Terminillo. He outclimbed Leipheimer and Horner again in the Tour of Utah before moving to Sky to become the next big GT star.
Betancur is indeed the right answer! And the streak could possibly continue next year, if he can find a team.
Haha, I'm so sorry!Go on then, make a point of telling everyone else how badly I did.
Well you came 36th out of 38 in the TdF game, so neeuuughhh!
I'll remember to make it up and then some if you return to the top 10 next year!
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